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Equipment for Making Archival Digital Copies of an LP Phonorecord, Part 1

This is a fascinating new series from our good friend John Marks, editor of The Tannhauser Gate. In it, John proposes to provide a reasonably simple and affordable method for converting LPs to digital files for playback on computer-based systems. I think that his comments will be quite helpful for those of our readers here at PF who would like to do this, but need some recommendations.

John's series should meet that need quite nicely.

Dr. David W. Robinson, Ye Olde Editor

Berlin the Bear staying on top of things in LP-Land. (Photo by John Marks)

Time for a new project!

Over the past few years, a new consumer-audio product category has emerged, that of phonorecord playback equipment with the added capability of outputting a digital datastream via USB connection. (I.e., a phono playback stage that also has analog-to-digital conversion and a USB digital output.) The ultimate expression of that concept is a turntable with onboard phono playback equalization and digitization. Such a turntable has both analog outputs for listening and a USB output for recording via a computer or other compatible digital device. Such a package has the advantages of low or low-ish cost, and easy setup. But its cost constraints will lead to sonic compromises, and such setups cannot accommodate pre-RIAA LP discs or 78 rpm records.

So I set myself on a quest to find a Pareto-Principle solution. This will be a four- or five-part series wherein I will discuss alternatives to USB turntables for people who want better performance, or who already have a non-USB turntable they are happy with. Along the way there will be some history lessons, and some practical advice too.

What "Pareto-Principle solution" means; some background on the challenges of storing music on analog physical media; and more, below.

Rega's new Planar 3 package may be the Pareto-Optimal solution. (Photo by John Marks)

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian economist with a vegetable garden. Pareto noticed that about 80% of the pea production in his garden came from about 20% of the peapods; and from that, both a Business Shibboleth and a Business Security Blanket were born. The usual form is, of course, "20% of your customers account for 80% of your sales." Applying this (hotly disputed in some quarters) concept to resource allocation in engineering, a Pareto-Principle solution delivers 80% of the performance of the most expensive solution at 20% of the cost.

Obviously, that is painting with a brush so broad that the paintbrush won't fit into a one-gallon can… especially in a world where there is an LP turntable with a US MSRP greater than the price of a Mercedes S-Class sedan (that means, over $100,000). So, for the purposes of sanity, when I write "Pareto-Principle solution" in this context, I am disregarding turntables that "normal people" are not likely to buy. My Impressionistic survey of turntables on offer suggested that the range between $6000 to $7500 was the watershed above which incremental improvements were likely overtaken by prices that increased far more rapidly. Applying the Pea Patch Rule, I then went looking for a turntable/arm/cartridge solution under $1500.

I will write separate posts about each of the components in this LP playback and archiving system. But before turning to that, a few words about the challenges of storing music on analog physical media.

In theory, (purely mechanical) sound recording could have been invented during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte (1804-1814/15). There were megaphones and diaphragms and needles and wax and bearings and even clockworks. Except, nobody put all the pieces together properly. That said, some people got tantalizingly close… .

British physician Thomas Young made tracings of tuning-fork vibrations in 1807, and French printer Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857 invented the "Phonautograph." But both were record-only devices that inscribed media that could be studied visually, but could not be played back acoustically. At least at that time… .

In 2008, however, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California used optical scanning and image-to-sound conversion software to create digital audio files of the earliest known recordings of human voice and speech, and they are truly awful. In large part because the phonautograph's barrel was hand-cranked.

Here's the inventor, slowly singing the French song "Au clair de la lune" in 1860:

A little-known aspect of early mechanical phonorecord recording (by which I mean before 1926) was that many recording studios were located on the upper floors of buildings because the recording lathes were powered by drop-weights, as in a cuckoo clock. Drop-weight mechanisms had steady speed and abundant torque. And such mechanisms were well-known long before Thomas Edison put all the pieces together.

I have heard acoustically-recorded 78 rpm records played back on high-quality acoustical-only phonographs, and the midrange impact can be startling. But acoustical recording systems are hampered by the conflict between the logarithmic (orders of magnitude) nature of sound waves of differing pitches and the physical limitations of the media.

Mechanical recordings aim to create an analog model of sound waves, but that project runs afoul of the fact that sounds of different pitches have different wavelengths. The highest note "A" (3520 Hz) on a full-size piano keyboard has a wavelength of 3.85 inches, whereas the lowest "A" (27.5 Hz) has a wavelength of 44.1 feet. Even Middle C (261.6 Hz) has a wavelength of 4.3 feet. That acoustical recording works as well as it does is rather amazing, and owes largely to the facts that the horn is too small to capture very low frequencies, and that the moving parts of the recording mechanism are massy and lossy.

The invention of the vacuum tube for amplifying electrical signals led to the development of electrical recording, which, starting circa 1926, quickly took over from the earlier acoustical system. However, in order to record properly, the music signal had to be cut in the bass frequencies (so that the needle of the playback machine would not jump the grooves), and boosted in the high frequencies (to overcome inertia in the cutting head and mechanical resistance in the medium being inscribed, either wax or shellac or later acetate). Playing back those equalized (or actually, distorted) frequencies properly is a major issue in playing back all phonorecords, but especially those from the time before the treble-pre-emphasis-and-bass-cut EQ curve became standardized as the RIAA curve. (The linked-to Wiki article is a very good introduction to that.)

In following weeks, I will focus on each component in turn.

John Marks's System

All components in BOLD are loaned; all components in standard face are owned by me as of fall 2016

The essential sound of this system is determined first by the loudspeakers, prototypes called Esperanto Parolantos. That's something of a pun, in that it means "Esperanto Speakers." (Esperanto, from the audio company I started after leaving Stereophile magazine.)

Mike Zisserson designed the Esperanto Parolanto loudspeaker while taking into account my "Wish List" of desired characteristics and capabilities. In that list I tried to express both in technical terms and in musical terms what I believe a music lover's relatively affordable two-way non-mini monitor loudspeaker should sound like.

One example from that list being that I wanted the top note of a grand piano's bottom octave (A = 55Hz) to ring out fully, while the rolloff in bass response below that point to be as smooth and non-lumpy as possible (within cost constraints). From 400Hz down to 40Hz, the Esperanto Parolanto is twice as linear as the "target" loudspeaker I set out to improve upon. (Mike's crossover design is innovative in more than one respect.)

The Esperanto Parolanto's bass response is so deep and clean that more than one listener has looked around for a subwoofer. Audio nerds take note, if you wish: the Esperanto Parolanto loudspeaker's cabinet is 8.625 inches (w) x 14 (h) x 10.5 (d), which gives a displacement of 1,267.9 cu. in.

The front panel is, by design, to Golden Ratio "Portrait" picture-frame proportions. It is the cabinet volume below the lower edge of the woofer-mid (as well as the characteristics of the port) that provides the satisfying bass extension.

However, the prime directive always was that the midrange—especially in the crossover region—be as phase-coherent as possible, in order to enable the "shock of recognition" from well-recorded human voice, classical guitar, or piano.

The result is a loudspeaker I can listen to for hours. There is enough bass extension for most music; the timbral balance (the fruit of work carried on, on-and-off, over the course of three years) is near perfect; and the imaging is exceptional.

Luxman's M-200 power amplifier drives the Esperanto Parolantos. The M-200's output is "only" 25Wpc, but I found it completely capable of driving the Parolantos, a moderately inefficient load (83dB/1W/1m). The Luxman amp is beguilingly smooth, but not at all lacking in top end. Loudspeaker cables are Audioquest's Type 44. They represent exceptional value for money. Analog interconnects are Cardas Audio's Clear.

The heart of the system is Bricasti's class-leading M1 DAC (the regular version, not the gold-plated one…). I wrote about the M1 DAC and its various upgrades and improvements several times during my tenure at Stereophile. If you have not heard it, you should.

That said, if your budget does not quite extend into Greater Bricastistan, Grace Design's m920 DAC/pre/HPA amp in my opinion provides 80% of the Bricasti's performance at about 20% of the price.

The prime digital source is Parasound's CD1, which is not so much a CD player or transport as a dedicated computer with a photography-quality CDROM drive spinning four times as fast as a normal CD player's, while employing a proprietary software-based read-until-right error-correction and jitter reduction system.

(In the event I need to hear digital sound files, I connect my iMac to the Bricasti DAC, using a USB cable from Staples.)

Connecting the CD1 to the Bricasti is an Esperanto Audio S/PDIF cable "Black," which is the upgrade model from the "Blue" S/PDIF cable. The Black has more frequency extension and greater resolving power than the Blue. (Perhaps that is because while the Blue's wood block is American Walnut, the Black's is made from Olivewood from the Holy Land… .)

The primary virtues of this system are realism and musicality. There is a sense of depth – not in bass extension, but that the music is dimensional in space and in time.

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Positive Feedback, A Premier High-End Audio Magazine – articles and reviews of high-end loudspeakers, amplifiers, preamplifiers, cables, tweaks, CD/SACD players, turntables, tubes, music, and more! All material within this site is copyrighted and can not be reprinted or used in any form without our express written permission. For problems with the site contact the webmaster.